Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have emerged as the strongest party in Denmark’s general election but are heading for a historically poor result, projections showed on Tuesday after the polls closed.<\/p>\n
It is not yet certain how, or indeed whether, Frederiksen will be able to govern the country for a third term.<\/p>\n
Projection late on Tuesday evening pointed to an unclear balance of power.<\/p>\n
The three parties that have formed Frederiksen’s administration – the Social Democrats, the centre-right Venstre and Foreign Minister Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen’s Moderates – are expected to fall well short of a majority.<\/p>\n
With around a third of votes counted, the Social Democrats were on 21.3% of the vote, down from 27.6% in 2022.<\/p>\n
Potential left-wing and conservative alliances are short of the necessary 90 seats in the Danish parliament,leaving Rasmussen’s Moderates as the kingmakers.<\/p>\n
Left-wing parties made significant gains, with the Green-Left party – which had campaigned for smaller class sizes and greater action on climate change – set to become the second-largest.<\/p>\n
“The Danes have spoken \u2013 and they want more red and green politics in this country,” said Pelle Dragsted, leader of the left-wing Red-Green Alliance.<\/p>\n
A key point of contention in any potential negotiations between the Social Democrats and left-wing groups is likely to be the tough immigration policy that has become a hallmark of Frederiksen’s time in office.<\/p>\n
On the far right, the Danish People’s Party recovered from a poor result in 2022 to seal 9.5% of the vote, according to the latest tally.<\/p>\n
Around 4.3 million Danes were eligible to vote. A provisional final result could be confirmed in the course of Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen is seeking a third term after a row with Washington over the future of Greenland thrust her into the international spotlight.<\/p>\n
The vote comes amid months of heightened tensions over US President Donald Trump’s push to take control of the semi-autonomous Arctic island.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen’s firm rejection of Trump’s bid boosted her approval ratings, helping to stabilize her government after a period of declining support.<\/p>\n
Seeking to capitalize on that momentum, Frederiksen called a snap election last month. She sought to present herself as a reliable crisis manager.<\/p>\n
Projections indicated, however, that the party risked getting its weakest result in more than a century amid voter discontent over cuts to social programmes and the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have emerged as the strongest party in Denmark’s general election but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[9157,27,26,3933,3396,4090,16112],"class_list":["post-47724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denmark","tag-danish-prime-minister","tag-danmark","tag-denmark","tag-lars-lokke-rasmussen","tag-mette-frederiksen","tag-munich-security-conference","tag-social-democrats"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116286975058047221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}